May News

From Gene Burnett

My latest album, “Slow Down Fast”, along with over 30 others, is available for downloading or listening free, or with a donation here: Musical Recordings I also made a youtube playlist with videos from all of the songs: Slow Down Fast (Youtube Playlist) And you can find all of my music, including “Slow Down Fast” at CD Baby, iTunes, Spotify, and other e-retailers of music.

Last month I was 9 songs into my next album project, now I’m 22 songs in and counting. Not sure what I’m going to do with them all. Right now I’m leaning towards my usual 18 song format and just bumping the others to the next one. I try to get as many songs onto each album as I can, basically to save money. I’m pretty sure hardly anyone listens to my albums as “albums”. I usually give out several dozen to people when they first come out and I rarely ever hear a word back. I assume they just land on a pile somewhere and that’s that. But you never, someone might be crazy enough to listen to an actual album, so I keep doing this. I think most people hear my music, if they do, on youtube, iTunes, spotify, or some other online format, and they hear it one song at a time. So I consider these albums collections of single tunes, and the more I can get on one album, the more tunes are out there, and since a 20 song album costs me almost as much to make as a 10 song album, I go for volume. I do arrange the songs artistically, as an “album”, because it’s fun, but I recognize, it’s a dying format.

Last month I shared the good news that I would be playing another “Green Show” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer. This will most likely be the best show I get this year. It’s always a pleasure to work with OSF. The date as been confirmed: August 17^th. 

I posted a whole bunch of videos this month. I’ve been working on making youtube video playlists for all of my albums. This involves not only creating the playlist and putting the album versions as well as “live” and Rogue Poetry Slam versions on that list, but also making new videos for the songs I hadn’t made videos of yet. This is fun and reacquaints me with many songs I’d forgotten about, sometimes forgotten entirely. Sometimes I end up dusting off the song and playing it out again, which is a nice bonus. This month, I made youtube video playlists for “Undiscovered~Parts 1 & 2”, “Flow More ~ Force Less”, “Maybe Nothing’s Wrong~ Parts 1 & 2”, “Without The Moon”, and “Nothing’s Impossible Now” with a total of 55 new videos! I know. It’s ridiculous. I should be posting as many or more videos for older albums in the coming month as well, but then I’ll be done. Until the next album.

I also posted a video from our “Loretta Lynn Birthday Bash” at the Wild Goose. So much fun. I really love learning new songs by artists I was aware of but hadn’t delved into much. This month is our big Bob Dylan Birthday Bash. Something we’ve done for many years running. I’m really looking forward to that one. 

I also posted 3 T’ai-Chi videos and 1 Nature video. The nature video is a video I shot of a hydra in one of my aquariums. My dad was a biologist and the animal he studied was the hydra, a pretty amazing and beautiful little creature. You can break one down to its individual cells and each cell will regenerate into an entire adult hydra. I was on a hike with my wife a couple of years ago and I grabbed some aquatic plant sprigs for one of my aquariums. I was hoping a few hydras might come along for the ride. It did take awhile but eventually they began to appear. Now I have a bunch of them. I have a Flickr Gallery devoted to pictures of them and it too includes the video. Check it out if you’re interested. They’re pretty cool.

Links to all of the above are in the “Videos” and “Pictures” sections below…

So here we go…I’m going to start with local shows in case you’re in the Rogue Valley and then proceed with the usual information about where to find my music, videos, and pictures, including information about new projects.

There is so much to listen to and watch on the net these days…I’m amazed anyone even gets this far in the newsletter let alone watches or listens to anything I’m doing. I’m sincerely grateful for every view, every listen, and every nice comment I receive. I’m happy if anything I post truly reaches even one person. I’m offering all this stuff in a “just in case you’re interested” spirit.

Upcoming Shows:

Wednesday May 1^st, I’ll be hosting my regular Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose Café & Bar. Usually this happens on the First Wednesday of every month. This month's theme is “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles” so musicians and spoken word artists will be doing songs and poems, covers or originals, that mention or are about this theme in any way. We’re never too strict or narrow about the themes for this event. The main idea is to focus our attention a little to hopefully inspire and motivate us creatively. These are always fun community events. No Cover at the friendliest bar in Ashland. Sign-up is 7:30pm. Show starts at 8:00pm.
*A heads up for next month: Wednesday, June 5^th, 2019: “Songs Of Summer”

Saturday, May 11^th, weather permitting, from 2:30pm-4:30pm, I'll be playing at The Lithia Artisan's Market, behind the Plaza in Ashland. Come support local music and art!

Thursday, May 16^th, it’s time for the annual Bob Dylan Birthday Bash at The Wild Goose Café & Bar in Ashland. All Bob, all night long. No idea when I’ll be going up…Things should get going around 8pm. Come early, get a good seat, have dinner and pay tribute to the master!

Saturday, May 18^th, from 10am-Noon, my good friends Jesse Biesanz, David Brown and I are hosting a Hacky Sack session outside the former Caldera Tap House on Water Street in Ashland. We’ll be under the overpass. This usually happens on the third Saturday of every month. We missed the fun and camaraderie of a good friendly Hack Circle and…more importantly, we missed the practice! It’s fun, aerobic, cooperative, demands balance, coordination, quick thinking and accuracy…So whether you’re new to the game, or an experienced player who wants to brush up your skills, or an expert who just wants to meet some new players, come on by. Hacky Sack basically involves keeping a small footbag in the air, usually leather and fairly soft, using only your feet. When there are more than two players, it’s usually played in a circle. If the circle gets too big, it is split into smaller circles.

The only rules of this Hack Circle:

1. You’ve got to use your feet to keep the sack in the air and off the ground. No hands! (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

2. If you miss or otherwise screw up, you can’t say, “I’m Sorry.” (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

3. No serving to yourself. (10 voluntary pushups if you do)

4. No hotdogging. Meaning this is not about how many tricks you can do before the sack hits the ground, and it’s not about working obsessively on tricks. Tricks are fine but in general, we want to keep the hack going as a friendly group and keep everyone involved.

See you under the bridge rain or shine. The overpass provides shelter from the rain and once the circle gets going, you’ll be plenty warm regardless of the weather.

For more info about these and all of my shows, and to confirm that there have been no cancellations, click here: Calendar

Since I'm putting this newsletter out once a month, it's possible there may be a cancellation of a given show by the time it happens. Please double check with my web calendar if possible to be sure the gig is still happening. I'd hate to have you come out for nothing. Also another gig or two might be added or times or locations might change, so do check the calendar for the latest info.  

Recorded Music

All of my over 30 albums are available for downloading free or with a donation at my website: GeneBurnett.com

Videos In General

Overall Mission: I post a lot of videos on youtube, over 1000 so far! I'm not trying to build a fan base. In fact, I'm not trying to build anything. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to follow what I'm doing or watch all of these videos. Posting videos is just part of my overall plan to make my music (and my T’ai-Chi and Nature videos too) as freely available as possible and see what freely comes back. I think of each video as sort of like a message in a bottle...and more I toss out there the more likely one of them will land on a friendly shore and something good will come back to me.

A Note on Monetization: I won’t be able to monetize my videos on youtube anymore. Monetization seems to be an option youtube wants to reserve for bigger more ambitions channels. I’ve always had mixed feelings about having ads on my videos, so to some extent, this is actually a bit of a relief. On the other hand, it was nice to make a little money from my videos and nice to think of “views” as adding slightly to my income. But such is life. I’m happy to be rolling free and clear of ads. With the help of some savvy facebook friends, I was able to ad this paragraph to the descriptions on all of my videos at once:

I hope this video has been helpful to you or touched you in some way that leaves you a little better off for having watched it. This is not a big time channel and I have no plans for it to become one. I’m too small to have ads on my videos and I’ve always had mixed feelings about them anyway. If you would like to support and encourage what I do here, you can make a donation to me directly via paypal. No donation is too small, (or too big!) and all donations are very much appreciated. Paypal Me

So here are some video links in case you're interested:

How to Find My Videos: First of all, I've set up a Videos Page on my website with a menu similar to what you see below as well as a digital tip jar in case any of you want to contribute to my cottage industry. Every little bit helps and not just financially. 

I've also set up some blogs that make navigating and viewing my various videos much easier. You can go to any of these blogs and see thumbnails for all of the videos posted there. Scroll across the thumbnails and you will see the titles of each video. Click on it and a page will open that will let you watch the video right there without going to youtube. My latest videos are always in the upper left hand corner.

To see all of my Music videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Videos

To see all of my T'ai-Chi videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Movement

To see all of my Nature videos in one easy to navigate place, click here: The Unforced Nature

For a quick and easy way to sort through, listen to, or download all of my albums free or with a donation, click here: The Unforced Music

To see my regular blog “The Unforced Life”, click here: The Unforced Life

To visit my youtube channel and possibly subscribe, click here: My Youtube Channel

To see all of my youtube playlists click here: My Youtube Playlists 

And here are links to my individual album youtube playlists. Some of them are incomplete but all will be complete soon.

Slow Down Fast
Thunder Moon
Love & Heartache
Better Off Broken
Crooked Love
Doubles Hitter
Already There
Why Start Now?
Where I Belong
Have A Wonderful Miserable Life
Too Busy To Worry
No Other Life
See No Evil
Brand New World
Up For Grabs
Flow More ~ Force Less
Undiscovered~Parts 1 & 2
Maybe Nothing’s Wrong~Parts 1 & 2
Without The Moon
Nothing’s Impossible Now

You Are Wrong
My Song Now
Terms Of Surrender~Parts 1 & 2
Undiscovered Country
Plan B
Where Will You Sleep Tonight?

New Videos

3 new T’ai-Chi videos:

Develop Your Physical Capacities
Snake Creeps Down
Fair Lady Works Shuttles

1 New Nature Video:

Floating Hydra

Many new Music videos:

Loretta Lynn Night

And these album playlists which are now complete:

Flow More ~ Force Less
Undiscovered~Parts 1 & 2
Maybe Nothing’s Wrong~Parts 1 & 2
Without The Moon
Nothing’s Impossible Now

Pictures


I've stopped posting as many pictures on facebook, (for many reasons), and started posting them instead on Flickr, which I like much better.

Here's a link to my "home page" at Flicker: Photostream.

I have many photo galleries there but a few of my favorites are:

Small Miracles (mostly Nature related stuff)

The Dish Whisperer (I started posting a daily picture of my dish stacking work over a year ago. I recently crossed the 2000 straight days mark. I have no idea how long I’ll keep doing this. I’m so used to it, it hardly takes any effort at all to continue. I made a video for my song “I'll Do The Dishes Tonight” that featured a slideshow of the first year.

"Humor" 

"Me Playing Music"

Trippy Clouds

Hydras


Website

I continue to offer all of my albums for downloading, free or with a donation at my website: www.GeneBurnett.com I started doing this about 10 years ago and considered it a 5 year creative experiment. Well the 5 years passed and I decided to start calling it my "ongoing creative experiment" as I have no plans to stop. Since I returned to my folk roots and stopped climbing, or trying to climb, the industry ladder, I've been enjoying music in my life more than ever before. And enjoyment, rather than achievement or worldly success has always been dearest to my heart anyway. So now I focus totally on what I love most: writing, recording, performing and sharing what I create. If other people like it, so much the better, but getting other people to like me or what I do is no longer my goal or focus. I'm out to please myself first. I want to do my music exactly the way I want to do it and see who likes it that way, not figure out what people will like and try to do it that way. I put it out there freely and see what comes freely back. So far so good. I've never had more success and appreciation than I have since I started doing it this. Go figure. 

Thanks, as usual, for your support and well wishes even if you don't make to any shows.

GB

www.GeneBurnett.com